It has been a good year for berries, and holly trees are among those that are witnessing to the fact. Many of them are completely covered with bright red fruit. Holly is widely used for hedges, which do not usually have so many berries on them, but it is essentially a small tree. It is able to flourish in the shade, so one can often find a tree laden with berries in the middle of an oak or hornbeam wood. There are also plenty of pink berries still to be found glowing among the dark green foliage of yew trees. They look like tiny mugs, and have sweet juicy flesh but a hard seed inside it. Birds such as blackbirds eat the flesh, while hawfinches crack the seeds open. Spindle trees have mostly lost their leaves, which turned scarlet before they fell, but on the bare twigs there are still plenty of the smoky-pink, four-lobed berries. These open up to reveal seeds like miniature oranges, some of which are still hanging there.